Guyana

Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is a state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally associated with the Anglophone Caribbean. It is the only state of the Commonwealth of Nations on mainland South America. Guyana is bordered to the east by Suriname, to the south and southwest by Brazil, to the west by Venezuela, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean.

At 215,000 km2, Guyana is the fourth smallest state on the mainland of South America (after Uruguay, Suriname and French Guiana). Its population is approximately 860,000.

It is one of the five non-Spanish-speaking territories on the continent, along with the states of Brazil (Portuguese) and Suriname (Dutch), the French overseas region of French Guiana (French) and the British Overseas Territory of the Falkland Islands (English). It is the only country in the Americas where homosexuality is still illegal, the current punishment being life imprisonment. Source